During my time at The Pilgrimage Music and Arts Festival, I was given the opportunity to sit down with Jon Hembrey from The Strumbellas. During our interview I was not only amazed by the colorful story that he had given me, but his kindness was pure and whole hearted.

At the beginning of the interview Jon started to talk about their 6 week tour with The Cold War Kids at the time, and I could tell from the way he spoke that everyone was ready to take an afternoon off after their long list of interviews. Jon told me where he began before becoming the lead guitarist of one of if not the the most successful folk-pop grass bands from Canada in history.

Before talking about their journey to success, Jon told me his beginning playing in punk rock and metal bands while taking inspiration from listening to the smooth Jimi Hendrix. He did this growing up in the suburban town of Lindsey in Canada just southeast of Ontario.

How did Jon end up playing with The Strumbellas? Jon was looking through Craigslist looking for people to jam with, and he found listing for the potential band by the current lead singer Simon Ward.

Simon lived in Toronto at the time, and he wanted to start a country/folk band with Jon and several others. What made the band stand out, other than the amount of people in the band, was they had no drummer, but they had every folky instrument possible. They released their first self-titled album in 2009 with songs such as "Underneath a Mountain" and "Indiana," which gained the love and support of people across Toronto.

The band came together to make some changes after the start of the band, and wanted to put some pop in, but it eventually turned into a folk, rock, pop band with some grass roots sewn into each song. The product was the album My Father My Hunter in 2012. Though this was not the final product of the band, you can hear the difference of the band's sound.

The biggest change in the band's sound came in their third album We Still Move On The Dance Floor adding in brass instruments, drums, and more. "Did I Die" is a perfect song to analyze to hear the differences. Bloggers, magazines and fans everywhere definitely loved the difference. The attention gained them a Juno award in 2014 for Roots & Traditional Album of the Year.

Their Juno award was momentum for their latest album titled Hope. This album is what gained them worldwide viral attention with their song "Spirits" gaining hundreds of millions of hits all over the world.

Other songs like "Shovels and Dirt" and "We Don't Know" have slowly gained more attention after "Spirits" lost its new feel. Jon told me that he influenced the video game idea for the newest music video for "We Don't Know" during our conversation, which is both brilliant and entertaining. Daniel Rosenberg produced and directed the music video with its release on Sept. 8.

The Stumbella's undeniable success has led them to many achievements, and now they are on tour with the Cold War Kids. Where the band is heading in the future is unknown, but very promising. From what I have seen of this band this is only the start in their long career as a talented band. The world is theirs for the taking with the quality of music that is continuously produced.

Current bands members: